Animals desirable for their pelts during the North American fur trade era included, among others, mink, otter, lynx, fox, muskrat, deer, raccoon, and the highly-valued beaver.

Beaver fur was especially popular because of its ability to felt. Beaver fur has two fiber-types: the outer, water-resistant guard hairs, and the soft, warm inner fur. When processing beaver fur the guard hairs are removed and inner hairs are kept. The hairs of the inner fur are barbed, so they felt, or mat together very well making beaver fur material ideal for constructing clothing and accessories, such as felt top hats.

Beavers and other animals were caught and killed in the wilderness by Native Americans and fur trade trappers. The animals were typically skinned on the spot and the furs bundled for transport to a fur trading post like Fort Vancouver. Trappers used various trapping techniques, one of which is the leghold trap used for trapping beavers underwater where the animals would drown.

The beaver was so important to the fur trade that the Hudson’s Bay Company included four beavers on its coat-of-arms. In areas where the Hudson’s Bay Company had exclusive rights to the land it practiced conservative trapping of beavers to protect population numbers. This means trappers would collect animals mainly in the winter and would only trap adults. In areas where the Hudson’s Bay Company shared trapping rights with the Americans they held a ‘fur desert’ policy. This means they would trap animals to local extinction so that the Americans would have no animals to capture.

Where beavers establish communities they dramatically shape the landscape. Using their sharp, orange front teeth, they cut down trees and drag them to a stream which they dam creating a pond. The blockage establishes a wider wetland area producing habitat for many other types of animals.

We have beavers to thank for much of the rich soil desirable for agriculture in the Pacific Northwest. Beaver dams cause stream water to spread out for hundreds of meters which historically infused the landscapes of the Willamette Valley and the Columbia River Basin with nutrients and a higher water table. Before 1700 it is estimated that there may have been 100 million beavers in North America. The fur trade wiped out most of those animals leaving behind  the fertile land in the Pacific Northwest exploited by American farmers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Conservation efforts are helping the beaver population to slowly rebound, but beavers are considered pests by many. Beaver activity is blamed for increased flooding and destruction of creeks and trees. But it is exactly these characteristics of the beaver that in many ways made the landscape of the Pacific Northwest habitable for American settlement.